How to create your buyer personas?
Identifying with precision the profile and the problems of your future customers, their brakes, their consumption habits and their way of thinking, will allow you to propose the most adequate offer which will meet your customers’ expectations.
What is a buyer persona?
A?buyer persona?is a detailed description of a representative person of your target audience. This persona is fictional, and it is based on extensive research of your existing or desired audience. Since different types of customers may buy your products for different reasons, you will need to create more than one?buyer persona.
This persona should have a name, demographic details, interests and behavioral traits. You need to understand their goals, challenges and buying habits. You can even give them a face by using a photograph or illustration.
In fact, you need to think and talk about this model customer as if they were a real person. This will allow you to develop consistent marketing messages that are specific to them, and that meet your customers’ expectations and needs.
Why use a buyer persona?
Buyer personas?help marketing, sales, customer support, and product teams make better and smarter decisions for the business. For marketing, the insights gained from defining?buyer personas?can help guide and improve your?marketing strategies. Ask yourself if your new campaign meets the needs and goals of at least one of your?buyer personas. If not, you should reconsider your strategy, even if you thought it was promising.
Once you have defined your?buyer personas, you can create your messages that speak directly to the target customers you have defined. Social media ad serving, in particular, offers incredibly detailed targeting options that allow your ad to reach exactly the right people.
Build your social strategy around helping your personas achieve their goals, and you’ll create a connection with the real customers they represent. The goal is to build brand loyalty and trust, to ultimately streamline your sales process.
How to create a buyer persona?
Your?buyer persona?should not only be an ideal person you want to connect with. It should be based on real data and strategic goals. Here’s how to create a fictional customer who is a perfect match for your brand in the real world.
1. Dosomein-depth audience research
It’s time to dig deep. Who are your current customers? Who is your social audience? Who are your competitors’ targets? For a more in-depth look at this topic,?check out our complete guide on how to research for your audience.
Compile audience data from your social media analytics (especially Facebook Audience Insights), your customer database, and Google Analytics to refine details such as:
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For B2B: company size and who is the buying decision-maker.
It’s also essential to understand which social channels your audience uses.
2. Identify your customers’ goals and challenges
Your audience’s goals can be personal or professional, depending on the type of products and services you sell. What motivates your customers? What is their ultimate goal? Conversely, there are also sensitive points. What problems or hassles are your potential customers trying to solve? What is holding them back from reaching their goals? What obstacles do they face in getting to their targets?
By enquiring with your sales team and customer support department, you can find answers to these questions, but another option is to engage in social listening, and analyzing. Setting up search feeds to monitor mentions of your brand, products and competitors gives you real-time insight into what people are saying about you online. You can learn why they like your products, or what aspects of the customer experience aren’t working.
Understanding how you can help your clients
Now that you know your customers’ goals and challenges, it’s time to think about how you can help them. This means going beyond features and analyzing the true benefits of your product or service. A feature is what your product is or does. A benefit is how your product or service positively impacts your customer’s life. For this, consider your audience’s main barriers to purchasing, and where your followers are in their buying journey. Then, ask yourself how you can help them. Capture the answer in one clear sentence.
Create your buyer personas
Gather all your research and start categorizing common characteristics. By grouping these characteristics together, you will have the basis of your personas.
Give your?buyer persona?a name, a job title, a home, and other defining characteristics. This shouldn’t simply be a list of characteristics. It is more a detailed and specific description of a potential customer. The goal is to create a persona that looks like a real person.
As you develop your personas, be sure to describe both what each persona is now and what they aspire to become. This will allow you to start thinking about how your products and services can help them achieve that goal.
Whether it’s improving your overall brand experience, adjusting your pricing, or creating marketing content that truly appeals to your customers, creating?buyer personas?is critical to your business's success.